Jenson v's Lewis - a retrospective view of their time as team mates

OK, it was definitely time to kill off the 'live' versus thread but there is no doubt that our discussions here will linger on and outlast their on-track rivalry as team mates long after the drivers themselves have moved on.

The purpose of this thread is for people to discuss the overall outcome, perhaps revisit their original predictions from when the partnership was announced, and to dissect the entire time together which is where that thread was anyway. If you wish to discuss any single year in isolation, then please do. Perhaps a new thread gives those not brave enough to dive into the older threads a chance to put a different view forwards. It is not about their future careers and may not be used to discuss 2013 and onwards.

Please keep it civil, do not call other posters or groups of posters names, and please please please DO NOT RESPOND to trolling; report it. Definitely do not report it and then respond anyway, as that just doubles the work.

The old one was close to its 4000 post limit anyway, and was already discussing the three years together, as well as becoming very personal. It was time to hit the reset switch. There's no obligation at all to take part, nor is there an obligation to look at all of the time together if you would rather look at any one year, but this way people will not feel constrained (if they were anyway) by the '2012' in the title.

If this thread did not exist, I feel certain that the discussion would come up in any one of a number of less appropriate threads.

Edit; As Cult says, I hope the new start means that people will try and stay civil.

My overriding thought is that Button has done much better than I had ever expected. My secondary thought is that Hamilton is still faster than Button. It was good to see them as competitive as they were.

In pure pace Hamilton will beat Jenson any day, but Jenson seems like more intelligent guy with decent pace & may be that's why he was able to beat Hamilton if we add points for last 3 years between Jenson & Hamilton.

Score is 2-1 to Lewis, but overall in last 3 years Jenson brought back more points home than Hamilton, it can be due to reliability or crashes, in any case they both have bragging rights to say who was best in last 3 years.

If I am team boss I will take Lewis over Jenson any day but his aggression has to be controlled, if he can't than I will throw him out & will bring Jenson as I know he will always get me points, may be not maximum all the time but decent enough....

In pure pace Hamilton will beat Jenson any day, but Jenson seems like more intelligent guy with decent pace & may be that's why he was able to beat Hamilton if we add points for last 3 years between Jenson & Hamilton.

Can we stop with this BS?Do you know something called reliability?Nothing to do with this "more intelligent" BS...

In pure pace Hamilton will beat Jenson any day, but Jenson seems like more intelligent guy with decent pace & may be that's why he was able to beat Hamilton if we add points for last 3 years between Jenson & Hamilton.

Probably best to watch the races from this year and make an intelligent point based on that. If you haven't seen the season, you're just going to be thrashing around in the dark. The most intelligent man in the world is not going to stop an F1 car breaking down if there is a mechanical failure.

Probably best to watch the races from this year and make an intelligent point based on that. If you haven't seen the season, you're just going to be thrashing around in the dark. The most intelligent man in the world is not going to stop an F1 car breaking down if there is a mechanical failure.

*Puts fingers to temples and concentrates the energy*

I hope you did see last year races where lewis was crashing up left right & centre

I've been reading the 2010 thread and boy...loads of laughs while reading.

One post is quite telling: "If Hamilton beats Button nothing much will happen with the team. If Button beats Hamilton their will be problems in the team. You can only imagine what Hamilton will say in interviews after Button has beaten him to wins. It will either destabilize the team or Hamilton will leave. Hamilton will not just lay down and cause no problems if Button is consistently beating him. "

I've been reading the 2010 thread and boy...loads of laughs while reading.

One post is quite telling: "If Hamilton beats Button nothing much will happen with the team. If Button beats Hamilton their will be problems in the team. You can only imagine what Hamilton will say in interviews after Button has beaten him to wins. It will either destabilize the team or Hamilton will leave. Hamilton will not just lay down and cause no problems if Button is consistently beating him. "

I've been reading the 2010 thread and boy...loads of laughs while reading.

One post is quite telling: "If Hamilton beats Button nothing much will happen with the team. If Button beats Hamilton their will be problems in the team. You can only imagine what Hamilton will say in interviews after Button has beaten him to wins. It will either destabilize the team or Hamilton will leave. Hamilton will not just lay down and cause no problems if Button is consistently beating him. "

Fair enough although in points Button leads after their 3 years together however McLaren values race wins in which Lewis narrowly beats Jenson.

It has been an interesting 3 years, Jenson closer to Lewis than I'd expected beforehand and proving there's more ways to skin a cat than just be fast on occasions.

2010 was more or less how I expected it in Button's first year in McLaren2011 Lewis' breakdown year and Button rock solid with epic wins2012 unlucky Lewis and struggling Jenson couldn't use the clear car advantage McLaren had

Their 3 year stint together made clear to me that 2 British drivers in McLaren doesn't work, there's always been this underlying tension, always the British press pitting one against the other.

For 2013 Lewis good luck in pastures errr different and Jenson as the undisputed leader of McLaren team has something to prove too.

And how exactly is it "close to reality?" When did Jenson consistently beat Lewis? Even in 2011, Lewis had some fantastic wins, and when Jenson did beat Lewis, he didn't moan about it. The only issues between them occurred this year with the twitter controversies, and think Lewis had decided to join Mercedes long before that. Jenson fans may think that he pushed Lewis out of McLaren, but to be honest I think Lewis wanted to leave McLaren as early as 2009. Signing that 5-year contract was a mistake.

Jenson fans may think that he pushed Lewis out of McLaren, but to be honest I think Lewis wanted to leave McLaren as early as 2009. Signing that 5-year contract was a mistake.

I think you are right. It was clear in early 2009 the team wasn't the same for Lewis once Ron had stepped away, and I think he regretted re-signing his contract. Whitmarsh bigged Button up to the press quite a lot in 2010 and this often gave the impression to the fans that Button was the favoured driver emotionally because he was Martin's signing. When news broke of Lewis signing for Mercedes it hurt and this was obvious from the interviews. They didn't expect him to leave and he made the decision pure and simple.

And how exactly is it "close to reality?" When did Jenson consistently beat Lewis? Even in 2011, Lewis had some fantastic wins, and when Jenson did beat Lewis, he didn't moan about it. The only issues between them occurred this year with the twitter controversies, and think Lewis had decided to join Mercedes long before that. Jenson fans may think that he pushed Lewis out of McLaren, but to be honest I think Lewis wanted to leave McLaren as early as 2009. Signing that 5-year contract was a mistake.

2009 - I dont think he realised what was going on yet. I would say that was 2011, mid-2010 at the earliest. By 2012, in his own mind, he was already gone - you could see it by him not giving a f-- when they constantly screwed up.

I think you are right. It was clear in early 2009 the team wasn't the same for Lewis once Ron had stepped away, and I think he regretted re-signing his contract. Whitmarsh bigged Button up to the press quite a lot in 2010 and this often gave the impression to the fans that Button was the favoured driver emotionally because he was Martin's signing. When news broke of Lewis signing for Mercedes it hurt and this was obvious from the interviews. They didn't expect him to leave and he made the decision pure and simple.

I wonder if more will come out when he is actually ensconced in Mercedes (from either Lewis or McLaren). There were some posters who believe that Lewis was on reasonable terms with Martin Whitmarsh and the issues were more to do with Ron Dennis. I have no idea, obviously, but I do feel that there is a lot that is not known to us.

I wonder if more will come out when he is actually ensconced in Mercedes (from either Lewis or McLaren). There were some posters who believe that Lewis was on reasonable terms with Martin Whitmarsh and the issues were more to do with Ron Dennis. I have no idea, obviously, but I do feel that there is a lot that is not known to us.

Whitmarsh treated Hamilton like dirt in 2010 and 2011, and he only changed his tune when it started looking like Hamilton won't resign with them.

Button did a respectable job as the team mate of one of the fastest drivers in the sport, but yes, Hamilton won the battle overall despite probably being the more unlucky one of the two. You could make some sort of silly comparison to Prost and Senna except that Button isn't quite Prost and Hamilton isn't quite Senna.

In retrospect, I don't think this spell really affected the reputation of either driver. It went kind of as you would expect, except that Mclaren never really came close to winning a title despite having pretty fast cars.

I'd be ready to bet a lot of money on which one of the two will finish ahead next year, but I guess that's going off topic a bit...

As drivers they complemented each other well. Lewis is the faster of the two, but takes more risks. JB is certainly not slow (as an aisde, I notice one of the major contributors to the defence of JB in the Vs topics put forward the view in the 2010 thread that he is no slower than Alonso in outright pace) but despite his outright speed deficit to LH he had an uncanny knack of picking his way through the field and maximising the points available. His main weakness was over-sensitivity to car behaviour, but for McLaren Hamilton would be there at the front when that arose, as would JB be when Hamilton's assessment of risk would go awry.

There were also numerous ontrack battles between them too. Two teammates who were actually allowed to race each other, with only one blip.

“"This tyre, I think, has got a much wider working range and that's going to make it much easier to get the tyre working from the start of the season. We've had to change our car a lot to get it working on the 2012 tyres when normally you'd be working on development.

"So it has hurt us quite a bit this year …”

Saw an article in the Kimi thread a few weeks back where the Renault guy was saying the same thing (with regards to his drivers)– time spent sorting out problems was time not spent developing the car – to paraphrase. So is that, + the ‘horse’s mouth’ above, conclusive then that the sorting out Button’s tyre problems DID affect the -27’s development and slow the team down?

one wonders how Heiki must be feeling that he was not given the same support that Button is enjoying and I can’t lie this is one more retrospective addition to a list of annoying Jenson/Mclaren attributes (needy, free media pass(wouldn’t surprise to find out the same interview/comments given to both Crash & Autosport with one employing some judicious editing but not the other), blatant brown nosing / “corporate stumps racing” company refusal for drivers to test at Mugello due to PR, shitty ‘reliability’ of an otherwise brilliant car ).

at the end of 4000 posts of claim and counter claim NEITHER WON A THING!!!!! I personally wish Jenson was as adaptable (tyre GOD good) as the press are so determined to ensure we believe he is (good) that way Lewis/Mclaren would have stood a better chance!

The other person/s I feel sorry for in all of this is Paddy Lowe (& his technical team – didn’t he warn about points early this season? AN geting all the accolades but didn’t that beautiful car deserve to win something?)

....(calming breathe 1,2,3...) moving onto 2013 I wonder if Mclaren will drop their conservative approach in order to provide a better head start.Hopefully Brawn is on his game and Lewis thrives at Mercedes

“"This tyre, I think, has got a much wider working range and that's going to make it much easier to get the tyre working from the start of the season. We've had to change our car a lot to get it working on the 2012 tyres when normally you'd be working on development.

"So it has hurt us quite a bit this year …”

Saw an article in the Kimi thread a few weeks back where the Renault guy was saying the same thing (with regards to his drivers)– time spent sorting out problems was time not spent developing the car – to paraphrase. So is that, + the ‘horse’s mouth’ above, conclusive then that the sorting out Button’s tyre problems DID affect the -27’s development and slow the team down?

one wonders how Heiki must be feeling that he was not given the same support that Button is enjoying and I can’t lie this is one more retrospective addition to a list of annoying Jenson/Mclaren attributes (needy, free media pass(wouldn’t surprise to find out the same interview/comments given to both Crash & Autosport with one employing some judicious editing but not the other), blatant brown nosing / “corporate stumps racing” company refusal for drivers to test at Mugello due to PR, shitty ‘reliability’ of an otherwise brilliant car ).

at the end of 4000 posts of claim and counter claim NEITHER WON A THING!!!!! I personally wish Jenson was as adaptable (tyre GOD good) as the press are so determined to ensure we believe he is (good) that way Lewis/Mclaren would have stood a better chance!

The other person/s I feel sorry for in all of this is Paddy Lowe (& his technical team – didn’t he warn about points early this season? AN geting all the accolades but didn’t that beautiful car deserve to win something?)

....(calming breathe 1,2,3...) moving onto 2013 I wonder if Mclaren will drop their conservative approach in order to provide a better head start.Hopefully Brawn is on his game and Lewis thrives at Mercedes

Everybody had to adapt their cars for the tyres otherwise the 1st 7 race lottery would have continued and Mclaren would have been racing with the Mercs all year.

but I don't see how points from nearly 60 races can be ridicule. Of course we can consider bad luck and machinery failures but this is what motorsport is about, isn't it? And looking at the stats again in this matter: